September 30, 2008 3:36 pm

I wanted to point out a cyber-controversy currently brewing that was pointed out to me by a Seahawks fan, Jason, in New York.

There is a web site called Seahawkshuddle.com, which kicked off this week by posting very tasteless and unfeeling jokes about the victims of 9/11, run under a picture of a smoldering New York skyline on that day.

Then, the New York Daily News picked up on the site, and its long-time beat writer, Ralph Vacchiano, posted something on his blog.

Understandably, some New York Giants fans are outraged at what was written on this site, and by extension Seattle and Seahawks fans. Reading through the comments on Ralph’s blog, it is pretty clear some of those folks went after the site because I can no longer pull it up online.

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Gregg Bell joined The News Tribune in July 2014. Bell had been the director of writing for the University of Washington's athletic department for four years. He was the senior national sports writer in Seattle for The Associated Press from 2005-10, covering the Seahawks in their first Super Bowl season and beyond. He's also been The Sacramento Bee's beat writer on the Oakland Athletics and Raiders. The native of Steubenville, Ohio, is a 1993 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and a 2000 graduate of the University of California, Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism.

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Somebody with more web savvy than I have needs to trace the origin of Seahawkshuddle.com. I can’t imagine it’s an actual Seahawks blog posted by a real Seattle fan. It seems more likely to be posted by a Giants fan who’s trying to create some locker room material for his favorite team.

If he is a Seattle fan, his neck needs to be wrapped in the cord of the 12th man flag so he can be wrung up the pole at our next home game.

I was hoping no one else would bring attention to this story, but I suppose you have to. What a bunch of low-lifes over at SeahawksHuddle. Absolutely disgusting. Luckily, it’s only a few fans. And hopefully NY knows as well as anyone that there are always a handful of idiots in every group of fans. These dopes are not indicative of the Seahawks fans as a whole.

With some of the garbage that’s posted on other “fansites”, I can’t say I’m surprised by this. It did surprise me that the people posting in the comments section of the Daily News decided to assume that all Seattlites, Washingtonians and all Seahawks fans felt the way the “SeahawksHuddle” creeps do, with comments like this: “Stay classy, Seattle. See you on the basketball court. Oh, wait…” and “typical lefties”. Is there a place more known for the dreaded liberalism than New York City? Someone even brought up the nazis and claimed they were left-wing, although I think the social democrats, socialists and communists who were sent to prison camps for political views would take exception to that characterization. Then they spewed some hate on Volkswagon as “Hitler’s car”. Maybe he was from Detroit.

So some p.o.s. posting crap like he did on that site brings out east coast bigots, spawns an attack on those who question the official version of events of 9-11 with facts that don’t support that version, sparks a “Left vs. Right” debate, and I use that term loosely, mocks the loss of the SuperSonics, bring up Super Bowl XL officiating questions, and spawn vitriol against Seattlites and Seahawk fans in the comments section. Is this where we’re supposed to retaliate with equally asinine quips like “enjoy the Dodgers and Giants..oh wait” or how the Giants don’t even play in the state of New York anymore or the collapse of the Yankees and Mets; or some other equally stupid and off the subject remarks? It’s all over a football game. I’m just wondering how many of the group-hate mongers (not just righteous indignation, which is warranted for that website)in the comments section were repeating jokes about the victims of the Challenger space shuttle which made the rounds after that tragedy or the victims hurricanes Katrina and Ike after they struck the deep south because of stereotypical attitudes about Southerners and blacks? No one has cornered the market on stupidity, ignorance, bigotry and stereotypes. The capacity for blind hate, group hate and ignorant bloodlust in homo sapien sapien never ceases to amaze me.

Tasteless absolutely tasteless. It’s never OK to open wounds like that. I will not accept that kind of crap from anyone. I don’t care who you are or what your cause is about. Those who said these things are not fans. I don’t know what they are but fans they are not.

at the Giants blog there was one thread where ONE guy was advocating flooding SeahawksHuddle with a pic of an empty shelf unit dubbed “Super Bowl Trophy Case”. Another guy got into it with him and actually had our back reminding the dingus that we got jobbed in XL. It actuallt made me really happy to see that football fans from other teams saw what I saw in Detroit. I still pronounce it “Pittsburgh Stealers” nobody can tell the difference in conversation but it makes me feel better

As for the dork at SeahawksHuddle, I got to a page cached by Google and he was trying to apologize. A little too little a lot too late if you ask me.

It is sad that this will make a splash over there and people will paint us all with the same brush.

That’s one of the down sides to the Internet. I love the Internet and the MASSIVE amount of information I have a my fingertips. I live in southern Oregon and the sports casters and program directors all think that the Seahawks are in the CFL and you can’t get more than a “…oh, btw, the Seahawks played today too, and won.” Meanwhile the 49ers and Raiders get in depth coverage and all the local TV slots. Which is really weird, because mostly Oregonians don’t care much for Californians. But anyway, the Internet is how I keep informed. And not just about football.

I once was in a chat room with a guy from England and he was pretty pissed at Tony Blair for backing GW’s play in Iraq. He mistakenly thought that ALL Americans were like W and I had to remind him that 49% of us didn’t like the guy anymore than he did. It took awhile to convince him.

Just the same as W has squandered our international reputation, so this nutjob at SeahawksHuddle has damaged the 12th Man’s image.

Sucks.

I think I’ll drop by that Giants blog and post a comment that tries to put the thing into perspective. “Most Seattle fans agree wholeheartedly with your outrage. That was classless, and dumbassed. Seahawks fans are known for their knowledge of the game and their overall sportsmanship. This is out of character, and if the nitwit who posted that would switch to being a Raiders fan, both the Raiders’ and Seahawks’ fan bases would take a noticable jump in average IQ.” Or something similar

Really messed up 9/11 has nothing to do with football and to bring it into a football converstaion is just wrong it was a national tragidy i hope they find this guy i dont know what was said but to joke about 9/11 at all is wrong i just hope that new york in genral not just giant fans know that most of us no matter where we live do not agree with what was said forget the football part

Leave it to one guy to act like a fool, and then for many of the Giants fans to feel disrespected by “Seattle”. How overly simplistic and ridiculous.

It bugs me as much as anybody around here that everything is framed in how it impacts New York. I watch a football game on the West Coast and I am told what time it is on…. in New York. But that is where it ends. It is more of a running rivalry between which coast is better. All good-natured ribbing and typical of the way this country runs. We are a strong nation together, but with strong local tie, feelings, and our own little idiosyncrasies. That’s the way we are… and it’s good.

We all realize that New York is the center of the nation in a way, we are told that over and over from birth. Perhaps they should “be the bigger man” in a situation like this then and show how cosmopolitan they are by writing off these comments by ONE person as the thoughts of ONE person. Each of us had our hearts broken right along with New York, DC, and Pennsylvania during the 9/11 attacks and we will never forget that. To pretend like “we” think the same as the idiot at Seahawkshuddle is just a group rage mentality that is looking to be offended and angry at another GROUP (that was NOT involved…. IT WAS AN INDIVIDUAL).

I find it ridiculous that because some egghead had to say and do something offensive that we all have to defend ourselves to the Mighty Giants Nation. The attitude that many have taken in this seems very backwoods small-town in their reactions to Seattle Seahawks fans and citizens of Seattle in general.

Be the bigger man New York. Show us that you are smart enough to recognize that this wasn’t SEATTLE and this wasn’t SEAHAWKS FANS. This was an IDIOT with no sense of right and wrong and no interest in doing anything other than getting attention. Show us how the “best city in the world” reacts New Yorkers by telling Seahawks fans that you bare no grudge and hold only the person who did this personally responsible.

Judge each man on his own actions and words and let this go. This wasn’t us, and I don’t think we should have to keep apologizing for this fool. That is on him. Let him be judged for his own actions and respect us for not doing, saying, or thinking the same things. Seattle is for the most part a classy place (just like New York), and our fans are for the most part great people (just like Giants fans).

Eh, I know the people involved over at that website, and trust me when I say they are the dregs of Seahawk fandom. What was posted doesn’t surprise me, given their history. As soon as I saw some of the names involved, I said to myself “figures”.

If they weren’t hacked, they need to seriously re-consider their position… and take down their site with it’s tasteless display – though it already appears it’s been taken down either by them or their ISP.

I feel sick and disgusted about this… Incredibly frustrated that someone would find any humor in anything making fun of people who died on 9/11.

As a born-and-bred New Yorker who fell in love with the Seahawks in 1976, I felt compelled to write a response to this situation. You can read it on the front page of our http://www.SeahawkBlue.com forum.

I am assuming someone who has a website covering the Seahawks probably has season tickets. I believe there is still a waiting list, hopefully the Seahawks get the name of this guy and pulls his season tickets (a win-win). It might not keep him out of Qwest, but it sends a message.

this is Hawk096 from the Huddle. First as I’ve been doing a lot this week apologizing on my involvement. I never went onto the site to talk about 9-11. First off I’m a New Yorker, but more imporantly an American. I was offended by the comments and pictures. I had personally asked him not to make those comments or bring them up. However as we can tell it didn’t happen. I do miss the huddle. I miss the involvement I had with the guys on there and consider a lot of them my good Seahawk friends. I have joined a new site http://www.seahawsspot.com and hope to have some other Seahawk Brothers join me. Hopefully this doesn’t get too much press cause in a way I feel a part of it :-/

Hi, long time reader, 1st time poster. Just wanted to say that I was once a daily poster over at seahawkshuddle, but stopped posting there about a year ago just cause I didn’t like the site too much. I saw the cached version and just thought I would share that the person who posted this tasteless post was an admin of seahawkshuddle, he created the site a long time ago and I was a member almost since the beginning. It is sickening to see someone post such a thing but at least since the poster was the admin I guess that means the site is gone forever. GoDaddy was the host of the site and I guess they are really pissed, who isnt?

Why is this news? If folks are going to get their panties in a twist every time some obscene knucklehead posts an offensive article on the web, they’ve got -far- too much time and energy to waste.

Giving this dipstick and his views continuing play is the media at its very worst–pandering to the mob mentality, 21st-century style. Now -that’s- offensive.

Anyone in New York, Seattle, or anywhere else, that wants to lather themselves into a frenzy of outrage directed at anyone other than the original author of this material–is either promoting an agenda every bit as unsavory and despicable–or simply intellectually bankrupt.

I used to be a pretty big contributor to SeahawksHuddle a while ago, but haven’t been to that website in over a year.

I “know” Mason, the owner of the site and the guy (idiot) who posted that particular thread. But I was a part of that group for a long time and while I was there, he seemed like a pretty dang cool guy. He was always nice, had a level head on him, put a lot into the site…a good guy to be running the place.

With that said, I was completely shocked to see that he would post something like that. I see a lot of people arguing about free speech…and yes, he has the right to say those things, but that doesn’t mean he was out of line. I don’t care how much you hate the Giants, but saying those things about a NATIONAL event such as 9/11 is stooping to a whole new level.

As nice as he seemed…apparently he’s more of an idiot. Makes me glad that I haven’t been to that site in over a year…wouldn’t want to be associated with that.

It is sad how disconnected some people obviously are from what happened. That they could use it as material for a joke like that shows that they personally have no concept of what actually happened in New York.

Hopefully the media can recognize that this is one idiot with a blog. Not representative of Seahawks fans as a whole.

My name is Rob Nargi, and I’m part of a group called Big Blue Interactive.com which had a large part in getting that moron off the net.

I just want to say that just like many of you, we were alerted to the site by seeking out opinions from sites of the oppnent for that week.

Huddle didn’t just disparage NYC. And frankly, as tasteless and disgusting as the front page picture and jokes were, what was truly an abomination was the callous attitude ‘Mason’ had towards anything non Seahawk or ‘left coast’ related. He was vile and disgusting, saying things like more planes should have hit Giants Stadium and Yankee Stadium (though he called it something less tasteful than “Yankee Stadium”) and said not enough Giants fans had died that terrible day. He even took pot shots on the doomed passengers for not being able to subdue ‘idiots with office supplies’ on board.

We went after him and the website because it was absolutely disgusting…unbelievable hate. We succeeded, and we’re all thankful that piece of garbage is no longer running a website.

As for the majority of Seahawks fans, just like the majority of Giants fans and football fans in general, we know you’re not aligned with people who think like ‘Mason’. Afterall…this is just football. Not life. We don’t blame Seahawks fans for this. We don’t hate you or your team, and want no retribution on normal fans.

This was not the first time ‘Mason’ stooped to this type of atrocity, he also did this to Bills, 49ers, and STL fans just not to this degree. He deserved everything he’s getting.

So I want to say I’m sorry that some people have lumped you all into one group with that moron. Clearly, by all the classy posts on NYG fansites, local blogs, and other blogs, it’s not the case. Again…we know that the vast majority of you are just like us. Hard rooting fans with respect in your hearts.

With regard to the offensive post on Seahawkshuddle, I wanted to make one or two quick points. As you can tell from my handle, I’m a Giants fan. I’m not here to start a flame war and I certainly don’t believe most people in and around the Seattle area condone what one person blogged.

The poster was guilty of horribly bad judgement and I’m sure he never anticipated the legs this story would have or the negative impact it would have on his life. That being said, he is responsible for his behavior and the consequences are his to bear.

Here’s the real problem, though. What happened to our country on 9/11 was an act of war. Thousands of people lost their lives in what I can only imagine was an excruciating way to die. Thousands more couragiously ran TO the site to aid those in need, and also perished.
Obviously, there’s nothing funny about that. So, when people say it was just one guy who wrote the things he wrote and said the things he said, that’s only half the truth. I saw the original post and there were 22 pages of comments. Twenty-two! Most of the comments were as mindless as the original. Twenty-two full pages and no one said “STOP!”

22 pages on one site….. I could dig up 10,000 hate sites for you right now BelovedNYFootballGia. You are grasping at straws by trying to portray it as a Seattle problem.

So how many people honestly agreed with the original poster and had something terrible to say? How many have agreed with what they have done here, on Sando’s ESPN blog, or on Seahawks.net? NONE, that is how many. I bet for the 22 pages there, we have had 500 pages elsewhere decrying the horrible behavior. When is it enough for you to let it drop and to just pin it on the individual responsible? Labeling it as an entire group is not a good plan.

I think you overestimate how many hateful idiots there are in Seattle and in Seahawks fandom. The guys who run that site do so because they couldn’t get along with anybody at the more popular Seahawks sites, so they took their narrowminded hate filled garbage and created their own site. They had their own place to spew that crap, and the masses stayed away from that site. That is a FACT.

Don’t tell me that it is a bigger problem. Sure, there may have been four guys who agreed with him… SO WHAT? There are millions of people in the greater Seattle area. There are thousands of fans like myself who grew up in Seattle and still support them even though we are far away.

Believe it or not… idiots tend to congregate together, and those who share similar narrowminded views tend to post on the same website.

What he did was UNACCEPTABLE. Those who agreed with him were UNACCEPTABLE. But to make it into more than just one (or a couple) of fools is WRONG. Flat out wrong.

22 pages – probably generated by the same 4 idiots slapping themselves on the back about how cool they were. The main culprits are nothing better than forum trolls so their behavior isn’t surprising. They have a real history amongst the diehard seahawk fans that congregate in other more civilized forums in anti-social behavior and spamming forum threads with drivel.

One thing that I’ll add to this that at the end of the day is likely meaningless: I put a post on that site explaining that the person who posted that drivel wasn’t reflective of what Seattle fans are about and that I’d run him out of town myself if I could.

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